Bring into the day’s work hopefulness, courage, and amiability. Do not overwork. Better far leave undone some of the things planned for the day’s work than to undo oneself and become overtaxed, losing the courage necessary for the performance of the tasks of the next day. Do not today violate the laws of nature, lest you lose your strength for the day to follow.—Letter 102, 1903. (2MCP 376.1) MC VC

Counsel to One Who Indulged in Exaggerated Language—From the light which God has given me, I know that spiritual deformity is being developed in you. In the place of giving a faultless exhibition of right principles and correct habits, you are gathering to yourselves sentiments and principles which will exclude you and all who partake of the same spirit from the heavenly courts. Your mind is becoming deformed by the way in which you treat it. I entreat of you to change decidedly about. Check all exaggerated language, for it destroys the harmony of the mind. (2MCP 376.2) MC VC

The body needs careful culture, that it may be kept in a healthy condition. So the mind needs to be strictly disciplined, lest it shall be unduly developed in some things and insufficiently developed in others. Because these susceptible organs are not in your sight, where you can see the harm that you are doing to your intellectual powers and how much they need regulating, you are not conscious of the harm you are doing them. You entertain unsound theories, and your mind is made to serve these theories. (2MCP 376.3) MC VC

The way in which you are mismanaging your mental machinery is wearing it out. But you cannot see what harm this is doing. Sooner or later your friends with you will see the unfavorable development of your thoughts and actions. Your stomach is beginning to testify to the action of the mind. A symmetrical and well-disciplined mind would change for the better the powers of digestion.—Letter 29, 1897. (2MCP 376.4) MC VC